Cav's Place

I’m continuing with the quick posts in this series as I keep trying to avoid needing to use more of those old book reviews to make room for more personal posts, and this one will be a particularly quick one if I’m to also post it before midnight and therefore make it this week’s second post. But at least the choice of bands was easy, since it would appear that what I had mentioned in the previous such post, what I assumed to be the banning of guy spamming the Power of Female Fronted Metal group, cross-posting stuff, was in fact a momentary issue and his posts reappeared after a few days, and that led to me not checking things at all anymore, feeling completely overwhelmed now that I also had older stuff to look at, posted before the date when I had last checked. But I did look one more time, going through just a few of those older ones, and ended up with a new and good band from Hungary, and the last one I had stumbled into before that, before his posts reappeared, was also from there. And I had one more band from there which I hadn’t included yet, and three should be enough for such a post, even if I had another that included three bands from Hungary only last year, though they weren’t the only ones in it then.

To go through them in that order, I’ll start with Tales of Evening, and I’ll say right away that they’re by far the best of the three. They’ve been around for several years, but their first album in English was just released earlier this month, so I couldn’t have really heard of them sooner, though I understand that they did have two songs that were also released in English in their early years, and one of them has a video as well, so I’ll go with that one, Winds Will Rise, as my first pick. The second one is much harder, on the other hand, since I really like what I’m hearing and can’t sit here to listen carefully and try to make a choice I’ll have the best chance to be content with later as well. Still, even though I understand that it’s included as a bonus track on that album, I’ll go with Flower of Frost. I may just end up a little lost in this one, listening to it on repeat for a while…

Moving on to the band I had stumbled into earlier, that’s Leecher and, despite calling themselves “cello metal”, they have a harsher sound on most songs, with some growls, albeit softer ones, on some of them as well. That means it’s possible that it’s not actually the first time I heard of them, but happened to hear one of those songs before and immediately dismissed them, yet those songs seem to be in the minority, so I’ll be including them now. Having their earlier songs on what so far is their only full album does make it difficult for me to stick to that rule of selecting the two songs from different releases if the band in question doesn’t have just one, but I guess I’ll go with Eclipse, which was originally the title song of their first EP, as my first pick. As for the second, I was considering two or three, but in the end I’ll just take the easy way and pick Fading, since they have a proper video for it as well.

As for the third band, that’s Half Past Dark and they only have one album so far, and apparently only two of their own songs from it, Fairy Tale and Saddenly, officially posted. At least that means I don’t need to choose, the picks being obvious, and it’s also not my problem that they can’t be from different releases. On Fairy Tale there are obvious problems with the vocals, on Saddenly the sound’s different in a way that I wouldn’t normally care for too much, and they’re not a band I’d have really considered including in such a post at this time if I’d have selected them individually, but it’s here to at least get to three and, with the other two being from there, not leave out any of those from Hungary which I had heard of so far and hadn’t completely dismissed.

It would appear that this need for non-personal posts does make me add more to this series, and this one actually reduces the number of bands not included in such posts despite only including three, because it would appear that the guy spamming the Power of Female Fronted Metal group, cross-posting stuff, got banned yesterday. I hadn’t checked it in two weeks, increasingly daunted by the prospect of going through all the new stuff, then went through about one week on Friday, leaving the rest for yesterday and today, but when I looked again yesterday I only found a handful of posts left in that period, and very few of them relevant, and then I looked again and found none of his anymore… Which at least means I’ll be checking that group again more, and will relatively rarely actually find new stuff, so if I will somehow keep this up I’ll actually have a chance to eventually go through some of those I had stumbled into in the past again. On the other hand, few actual new finds may mean I won’t add more of these posts after all.

Still, at the moment I do have one new find, out of the posts I went through on Friday, though the band itself is over 20 years old. It seems that Kârma were a cover band for a long time, however, and only their third and most recent album is in English, and also a metal one, so I haven’t checked any older material. In fact, hadn’t checked anything other than Path of Light before starting to write this post, and that one made a good first impression. Unfortunately, now that I’m listening to the rest of their album, which is available on their Bandcamp, I must say that it doesn’t come anywhere near the expectations created by that song. But the other better one that I can find is Sorrowful Dawn, so I’ll go with that as second pick. It seems odd to talk of potential for a band that’s over 20 years old, but with this actually being their only material intended as symphonic metal, and also their only material in English, I guess I can say that there is potential there and it remains to be seen what they’ll do with it.

Though they’re not an actual new find, don’t even have new material released this year and, while I don’t have particular reasons to complain, I can’t say that they stand out in any way either, the name of Kârma’s label reminded me of Alcyona, and since Samhain seems to be their one new song since their first album, I’ll take that as my first pick. Besides, it also happens to be quite fitting, considering the date. And then I’ll make it easy for myself for the second pick, just sticking to what’s easily available, so I’ll go with their first song, The Lost Valley.

As for the third and last band in this post, that’s Cathubodua, and the fact that they just released their first full album does offer a good reason to mention them now, even if I had otherwise known of them for some time as well. The song used to promote said new album is Hero of Ages, so I’ll go with that as first pick, and I guess Scarecrow will be the second, to have something older as well. The older sound is a bit harsh for me, but it was nevertheless good enough to catch my attention at the time, and Hero of Ages is quite obviously better, that harshness being more controlled. Haven’t listened to other songs from the album, however, so I can’t say anything more than that.

I guess I am trying to add another post to this series, so quickly after the previous one. It’d be great if the need for non-personal posts will make me actually manage to write more of them, but we’ll see what happens. At this point, despite the fact that it actually will include five bands this time, this one doesn’t even change the number of bands not included in such posts, since last night I went through what had been posted on the Power of Female Fronted Metal group since I wrote that previous post and added four bands, and then checked again before starting to write it today and added one more. Should also note that the last band included in the post isn’t one of those added, since one of those added just had one song uploaded, so I couldn’t make the usual two picks, but while I normally just ignore songs from bands I had heard of before ever since the group became so active, for some reason last night I decided to update the links for one such band, so I added that as the fifth one now.

To start with the band added today, that’s Hamen. Since I wasn’t rushing nearly as much as last night, I actually listened to most of their one full album on their Deezer page and there may be better choices there, but since that site requires signing up and logging on in order to listen to full songs, I don’t link to songs posted there and will just go with the song that was posted on the group, My True Freedom, as first pick. As for the older song for the second pick, let’s say Winter. Still those lengthy instrumental bridges in the second part of songs that are so awfully common and keep bothering me, and the low production value, particularly notable on the older songs, hurts them, but they have something interesting as well.

Moving on to the bands added last night and going through them alphabetically, the first is Everfall and, with three videos posted and one of them being for a song in Spanish, my two picks were not a matter of choice. But that’s definitely not a problem, as both Revenge and Damned Eternity are good songs, I’d say the latter in particular. They may be better composed than performed and recorded, and could quite clearly use a more powerful voice, or perhaps a male voice in addition to the female one, but even so Everfall may well be the best actual new find in this post, at least at such a quick glance and based entirely on my subjective opinion and preferences, of course. They even managed to make those bridges somewhat interesting, which is an achievement in itself. And they’re also the first band from Bolivia to catch my attention so far.

Next would be Golden Jubilee, a name which hardly fits a metal band but which makes far more sense when you see that they apparently had many blues influences early on, and some things are still noticeable. Whether that’s good or bad depends on each person’s preferences, of course, but it clearly makes for songs that are generally softer and slower, and rely less on the instruments and sounds usually associated with metal. The self-titled song and Heal Me may be the worst examples of those differences out of the songs I listened to from them, and the latter also features two other artists, but I am choosing them as my picks just because they sound much better to me. The production and even the voices themselves also seem better, which is odd, especially in case of the production, since the others are from the same album. But when you have a song with the same name as the band and another that features other artists, I guess it’s only normal to put more effort, and possibly also resources, into them.

Hypersonic comes next, and no, I have no idea what the name has to do with the Christian theme I see in their songs. Raising my eyebrows at those lyrics to say the least, and some sounds seem to belong more in electronic songs, or something of that sort, plus that those instrumental bridges are here as well and they’re not doing anything interesting with them either, but they do have a good, solid sound overall, and a powerful voice. Prayer in the Dark is clearly the best example of that out of the songs I listened to. I’ll go with a much older song as my second pick though, Wings of Life, to show where they started from, even if that’s a somewhat different song, more of a ballad, and also the only one from their first EP that apparently wasn’t also on their first full album. Not sure why that was, but to me it sounds clearly better than the other three on that EP.

As for the fifth band, the one I had heard of before, that’s Dialith and they’re the reason why I said above that Everfall may well be the best actual new find in this post and not simply the best band in this post. They have everything on Bandcamp, so you can go there if you’re interested, but I’ll take the easy way for the picks for this post, sticking to their YouTube channel and therefore, at this point, to The Sound of Your Voice and Libra. Despite having just released their first full album in August, what I’m hearing is solid, powerful, confident, well produced, professional… And the fact that the theme has to do with the sixth mass extinction, currently being caused by humans, is definitely also a plus. You may say that the overall sound is rather typical, but there are some exceptions there as well and, either way, what’s more important is the quality, and Dialith are clearly among those who not only do things well, but they do them well pretty much from the beginning too, which is even rarer.

I’ll just make a quick addition to this series, mainly to avoid needing to use another one of those old book reviews to get myself a “slot” for tonight’s post. Just three bands in this one, and only one of them an actual recent find, but that’s what I was left with after ending up dismissing the other one, also from Japan, that was even more recent and which made me think of looking through the Asian bands I knew of. Will likely return to that one later, since at the moment the issue is that there are few songs in English and the accent on the older ones is so bad I can hardly tell they are in English. But, either way, after dismissing that one and another one from Singapore which split up a few years ago and had bad vocals anyway, I was only left with two “proper” Asian bands, not including those from Israel or the exact locations of those from Russia, and one of them is an old find. So I then went back to my initial idea, of looking for African bands, but other than Analgesia, which was awesome and I already included in such a post, I only had two of those to begin with, and pretty much only added one back when I stumbled into it because it was so unusual to see such a band from that region, so I don’t care to put it in such a post. But, even though the other African band is also an old find, and may also no longer be active at this point, at least that left me with three bands, which will have to do.

That Japanese band I didn’t discard is Lovebites, and while you definitely notice the accent in the vocals, otherwise they really don’t sound like something you’d expect from a band from there, and even less so like an all-female one. Now I didn’t listen to many of the songs, so I’ll go straight with Rising as first pick, being the one video from their second full album, and with what I read was the ballad from the first one, Edge of the World, but if you’re interested you can currently find just about everything on YouTube. I’ll probably go through at least a few more myself after posting this, and hope I won’t end up regretting including them in such a post once I do, but at this point I don’t think there’s a significant risk of that.

The second Asian band is Blodwen, and they’ve been around for much longer, and I’ve known of them for much longer, but for some reason I remembered them as a band I didn’t care to add in such a post. Based on the few more recent songs I listened to now, I really wonder why, but I first heard of them quite a number of years ago and things might have been different then, and I see that even they don’t have the first full album uploaded on Bandcamp, where they have just about everything released later. Don’t see their most recent release there yet though, Darkest Day Blackest Night, out just this month, so I’ll use that as first pick, to add something particularly recent. And for the second pick I guess I’ll go with Lovelorn, which was also released as a free single, but is in fact from their second full album.

As for the third band, that’s Crimson Chrysalis and it’s from South Africa. Judging from the lack of posts for the past couple of years and the fact that the site vanished, they seem to no longer be active, and they also don’t have a Metal Archives entry, but then again, they list themselves as symphonic rock, not metal. They are listed on Spirit of Metal though, so I’ll use the links from there for the albums. All of the second one is actually available on SoundCloud, but I just went straight with the first video they have for it, Sacred Vow. As for a pick from the first album, let’s say Angels and Demons, to be somewhat different. May end up listening to that second album after posting this, since it’s there, but see no reason to believe I may regret adding them in such a post, at least if you don’t count the fact that they may no longer be active.

We’re in the second half of the year and I hadn’t added anything in this series, so it’s about time. Had been meaning to for a while, especially since I need non-personal posts, plus that the Power of Female Fronted Metal group became much more active recently and I therefore stumble into new bands more often than I had been in a while, but kept putting it off. In fact, I was about to give up on the thought today as well, but in the end I set my mind to it, at first thinking I’ll stop after just three entries if I’ll have to. Got to five after all, but it’s rushed and I tended to mostly, with one exception, just listen to what was posted officially on YouTube, not including any live recordings, making my usual two picks from that instead of out of everything that could be found.

I’ll start with Enemy Inside, which doesn’t even have an entry on Metal Archives yet but which I know I listened to before, YouTube listing their previous videos as watched as well. I think it was the heavy sound and that trace of something oriental in two of them, quite clearly coupled with me rushing or being in a bad state of mind at the time, that put me off, making me dismiss them until today, when I happened to listen to Phoenix, which therefore needs to be my first pick. If I eliminate those two and the one that’s a live video, and since I didn’t listen to the rest, the second needs to be Oblivion, but I may actually prefer that one. And those I had previously dismissed did also catch my attention to some extent now that I listened to them again, and if you read the descriptions you’ll see that they actually have a point to make too, with all their songs.

It’s a somewhat similar story for Nightqueen, which has a power metal sound that seems brought from as far back as the ’80s and which I was aware of but had dismissed until today, when I happened to listen to Wall of Sorrow. Now this genre isn’t what I’m usually looking for, but their current vocalist makes all the difference, truly having what it takes for it. You’ll likely notice the difference if you compare with an earlier song, like Lady Fantasy, which isn’t bad but simply lacks this sort of voice, in my opinion at least.

Moving on, Tigersclaw is an actual recent find, having first heard of them less than a month ago, and I actually recall being quite blown away by Force of Destiny at the time. Listening to it again now, I’m not that impressed anymore, but like the voice well enough. They could do with better recording, which may be a matter of being able to afford it, and a more complex sound, but they seem to lack the members for that, so it’s nice enough for a band this size. For an earlier song, I’ll go with Eternity, which may actually sound better.

Another band I only heard of recently, Lureaway, is the one exception to what I mentioned above, only listening to official videos posted on YouTube. In fact, they seem to me to pick what to post there, or even make a video for, quite poorly, so the links will be from Bandcamp as well, the first pick being Aflame. As for the second, though there may be another that’d get closer to following my rule of having the two picks from different albums if possible, being the only one of the four older songs listed as having been re-recorded for the recent full album, I’ll nevertheless go with In Bed with the Beast as my second pick. I think these two songs show what they can do, and why I like how they sound the best out of the five bands included in this post.

As for the fifth band, that’s Sin7sinS and it seems that they recently returned after a few years, Prayer for Night Eternal being their first song after the hiatus and catching my attention when I heard it. From what I listened to out of their older songs, I guess I wouldn’t have exactly been interested, and it is in fact quite likely that I heard of them back then and dismissed them, but there are a few exceptions, the most obvious out of what I listened to again now being Bittersweet Dreams.

As I already mentioned, this was a rushed post, not doing justice to the bands, but at least I managed to write it, and post it before midnight as well, to at least have a chance to avoid another Sunday update, though I somehow doubt I will. Either way, even these few words about each are better than nothing, though it hardly makes a dent in the number of bands I really should post at least this much about. It doesn’t mean all that much even for those that caught my attention after being posted on that group I mentioned over the past few months, since the activity picked up as it did. But if I could write one, I hope I’ll manage more, sooner or later. As usual, definitely mean to write at least one more by the end of the year, and hope for two more, so let’s see how that will work out.